


Ghosts.

by impracticallyperfect (whynotfour)



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: F/M, Ghostin' by Ariana is a theme, Lots of Angst, War, fits around S1, picks up after MOB drama, really sad sometimes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-10-31 01:50:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17840120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whynotfour/pseuds/impracticallyperfect
Summary: Not everyone made it home from war and Tommy has a duty to look after the people his friends left behind. But when lines blur and he is haunted by the ghost of his own guilt, what steps will he take to protect the person he loves?





	1. Prologue: Telegraphs.

The cobbled streets of the North struggle to feel like home these days. Weaving her way through familiar back alleys it is as if a foreign town has replaced the one she once loved - every step as if the road might cave in beneath her. Happy memories in dance halls and on street corners are tarnished by the ink of a telegram received only months ago and once vibrant colours are now muted by the realities of rationing and an absent generation. White tape borders windows, marking out crosses that challenge the German’s to touch their small corner of the world and she although she would never speak of it aloud, sometimes in the still of the night she wishes they would. 

Every now and then the world before feels like nothing more than a distant memory - something you would watch on screen at the pictures - and it’s impossible to imagine a life without loss, let alone the world that existed before 1914. Evacuation had sent a small minority of her class to far flung corners of the world but those that remained relied on her as their teacher to get them through the chaos that followed air attacks and cobbling together what was left from the rubble. In truth she needed them in her life just as much to help ease the grief that weighed heavy on her heart. Many had lost dads, uncles and brothers; too young to understand anything other than their mothers’ tears as she told them the names of whom could no longer return and those that knew loss before kept quiet about the hurt they felt inside. The local Father had taken the time to teach the children prayers and hymns that those who were left behind would recite around the wireless as they waited for the inevitable, and families would pretend that this is what maintained their faith as they repeated heavy words at the start and end of each day. It was the line ‘in the bleak midwinter’ that she heard herself repeat every time a rumble sounded in the foreground and she herself bargained for her beloved. 

A symptom of the great depression, once able fingers now appeared skeletal and the ring that once belonged above her knuckle now had to be worn on a chain as not to slip away. Still it was the metal of this band that burnt at her breast bone the morning she came home to find a telegram on her doorstep. The world fell out from beneath her as she recalled Prime Minister Asquith calling the country to arms in the name of the King and civil liberty; the queue that she had stood beside her betrothed in as he waited to sign his name on the enlistment forms – a patriot proud to serve England; the fear she felt as James opened a telegram just like this to summon his regiment over to France; the lives they should have been shared torn away by the shrapnel of shells and bullets.

There was no explanation as to how his life had been stolen, no advice about how to rebuild a shattered future or deal with the anger and pain piercing her heart like a freshly sharpened blade. Instead all she had for comfort was the words of a newly minted general telling her that James was missing in action, the fateful phrase presumed dead written as plainly as her own name. It was unspoken the secrets that official communications held, grief dealt with by widows and mothers behind closed doors. Nobody spoke of how they coped. They just did. The truth was she couldn’t remember the moments that came after the news or the actions that led to her neighbour finding her on the floor in the dark, the shredded telegram telling a story her lips never could.

Three months turned denial to grief, the white gown that had belonged to her mother never to be worn again as it hung in the corner of her room. Dust ate at the lace as she spent every free moment poured over the letters of her clay kicker until they were committed to memory and she could hear his voice singing the words out to her. _‘I’m dreaming of coming home to you.’_ When she manages to sleep James is there as he was when he first left, adorned with the green of a freshly pressed uniform telling her that he made it back and then they lay in each other’s arms until his torso melts away and all that’s left of him is the French soil that ruins her sheets. 

At some point the tears had stopped falling and the world had moved on without her. The street had been shattered once again by loss and insanity, the woman at number twelve who had lost her second eldest slipping from a position of poise as she howled in the streets for God to return him to her. The doctor had prescribed something to help but she knew from experience it would only drown out the cries of the woman’s two youngest; putting her in a cloud of fog that could only suck you in deeper. She was one of the lucky ones if society was to be believed, she had no physical proof of James to remind her of him. 

News from the front rarely mattered now, the reports days old before they reached Birmingham, and she had no need to listen for updates on casualties when the biggest had already been inflicted here at home. She had stopped absorbing the butchers updates on who hadn’t received word from their men when she collected her weekly rations and the sting of a student’s missing brother no longer struck her like it once would have by the time October came. Now she had no regiment numbers to listen for, having long accepted that the chance of finding anyone from James final days was as hard as tackling the front line itself. Besides, she didn’t know if she was ready to accept that the images of his body being consumed by bullets and mud were anything other than fiction. She had only just stopped hearing him scream in the night and it wasn’t clear if she could withstand the trauma of losing him all over again. 

She refused to acknowledge the world around her for what it was, focusing on the trees above her that were beginning to collect thick sheets of ash amongst their leaves – dreaming of the first date she had shared with James beneath falling snow as she rounded the corner to Baker Street. It was there that white dust turned to mud as a man in uniform stood on her step.


	2. The Unknown Soldier.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Shelby. Tommy."

Gravel stings her hands where it is embedded, the fresh cuts to her palms proving that this is more than just fantasy. Every sense feels like it is being dulled by the pain slit between flesh and emotion, but still she wants to believe that the thudding she hears is their hearts beating in unison once more. The khaki of the Unknown Soldier’s uniform is blurred by tears but still she can see the stains of a French battlefield, now marred by the scarlet of her own blood. Her nails brittle and broken, clash with the brass of buttons when he helps her to her knees and she clings to his chest; too afraid to search above the collar for a face she might not recognise. 

Something akin to dread makes her not want to hear the voice that leaves his lips, nor the thoughts that swarm inside her own head like fighter planes overhead. Instead she find the words to a hymn circling through her mind; ‘Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain, Heaven and Earth shall flee away’. She fears that standing on the streets of her own quiet neighbourhood she is being forced to face her own bleak midwinter.

Her body shakes and breathing becomes ragged, colour draining from his own face as her response sends him back to France. The knowledge of what to do when someone slips into shock fades away in the place of mud-caked memories and it’s not until she sobs that he remembers that he’s not the one buried beneath foreign soil. The Church Bell chimes its way into their shared reality, bringing them back to Birmingham and forcing her eyes to drink in the freshly shaven jawline and hallowed cheekbones dug deeper by war. His eyes are sunken beneath a pool of shadows, purple and black emphasising the colour and it’s the confirmation that she didn’t need. This isn’t her soldier returned to her. This isn’t her James.

She wishes that she could pretend it was, easier to embrace him and let every emotion she’s kept bottled inside spill onto the canvas of his uniform than face the truth. But it is not him that will be there kissing the tears away and telling her he’s safe, it would be only a ghost telling her that he is not coming home. The man she is holding is not the one she loves.

Blue eyes replace emeralds, soft speech drowned out by a voice that she doesn’t hear in her dreams. It’s not the familiar call of ‘sweetheart’ that turns her stomach to knots, but the formality of a maiden name that will never be replaced by his.

“There are no words for what you must feel…” however sweetly the words are spoken they are still no match for the man she has lost and the condolences of strangers have lost all sentiment in time gone by.

She doesn’t understand the soldier’s presence – doesn’t feel a need to in the moment when he’s triggering so many memories she’s tried to repress - as she and her heart crumple in his arms like a half-written eulogy for the man she loves, and her grief absorbs them both whole.

Tommy doesn’t know how to react when all of her walls tumble down around them and it’s the final moments of James’ life that catch in his throat like a dying breath when he tries to speak her name. He thinks back to the man who had fought alongside him in the worse moments of life and the laughter that chased the silence when it came to respite. Seeing her with his own eyes its clear the photograph stuffed into James’ pack was taken in a different period of time and he struggles to picture the smile that his friend had described as his salvation when their backs were to the wall. He hears the way that they promised to look after whoever the other left behind and the desperation in his comrades voice to come back to her and it makes his chest hurt even more to feel her tears sinking into his collar. 

All he can do to be strong for her is to follow his friends lead. He pictures James on the step at Small Heath being invited in by Polly or Ada, their faces crumpling under the pressure of grief as they’re told that he won’t be coming home. It’s not hard to imagine, something that filled his mind when he was in the hospital debating holding a gun to his head and blowing out the nightmares that never seemed to finish. It was them that he had to live for just as James had tried to live for his fiancée and future. It was her who Tommy had vowed to protect and it was his duty to do so.

\-----

She flinches as Tommy takes her hands, his skin dark with dried German blood that he’s unable to shed and hers are softer than he ever thought imaginable. He can feel her pulse beneath his thumb as he turns her palms over to examine the cuts and it’s as relentless as the machine guns that he’s so used to hearing fired above him. Desensitised to blood and severed limbs the feeling of nausea that had once rushed through him when his mother had attended to the aftermath of his scraps now felt like nothing and it allows him to look beyond the surface at the shrapnel piercing her wound. His touch is gentle as he dips the linen cloth in hot water, warm enough to draw away the blood oozing from her cuts but not hot enough to scald. He warns that the pressure will hurt when he presses the material against her but they both know that the turmoil raging through her head is worse than any bodily harm he could ever inflict. 

“I didn’t even get your name,” her voice has a tremble he never imagined it having when she finally manages to speak and her eyes still don’t meet his even through the thinly veiled question. 

“Shelby. Tommy,” comes his reply just as unsure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was really emotional to write. I'm trying to keep it as true to period as possible so I'm researching as I go. I cannot thank you all enough for the support and feedback I've received it really does make all the difference. I hope this chapter lived up to the first. xx


	3. Tunnels.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommy tells a story nobody should have to hear.

The slice of bread on his plate is thicker than he’s used to and the crust runs thinner than the loaves Ada used to help his mother bake, but still Tommy finds there’s something of his childhood beneath the coating of jam and butter. Once upon a time he would have preferred his crusts removed, this being before their father lost his job at the factory and his mother had to make the choice between feeding his brothers or herself. Now he knew what it was to go hungry he wouldn’t let a crumb go to waste even if Arthur told him his hear would grow curly. Tommy always swore his brother only told him that so Aunt Pol could use the rest of the loaf to make bread and butter pudding for their Sunday treat after church.

He wonders if it is the meal that reminds him so much of Watery Lane or perhaps the décor, smaller than his home but welcoming with its patterned walls and freshly stoked fire that she’d put on to burn once it started getting dark. Like any God-fearing family should, they had a crucifix hung beside their picture of the King – frame tarnished in one corner due to what he assumed to be a tremble from the bombs dropped down South. His own family photo had been smashed to smithereens Ada had wrote, made him promise they’d sit for a new portrait when this was all done. His sister would love to spend time here reading the books that sat above the mantle. 

Tommy doesn’t mean to notice that one armchair is more worn than the other, knows it has nothing to do with James’ absence but one more long-standing, and yet even so his eyes linger on the cushion plumped more than any other. The house was well-lived in as Polly might say; as unexpecting of guests as its’ owner with her frayed skirt and a threaded needle waiting to repair. From a distance everything about it seemed to be perfectly put together but up close Tommy could see the cracks beginning to show. He wanted to help he supposed, a sense of duty leading him to her door beyond that of a brother in arms, stories that had been told in their off-shifts paving the way to her door.

The woman he had been drawn to still has her back to him, refusing to sit and eat alongside the soldier and instead choosing to watch the clouds come drawing in over the village. She peers out from between lines of tape at the darkening streets and Tommy wishes he knew what to say or do other than reach for the handle of the tea pot and refill his cup. It’s startling to them both when she turns on her heel, the swish of emerald silk causing him to mispour and fill his saucer with liquid. 

“So you fought alongside my Jimmy?” her voice is softer than the action and a nickname he’d never heard his friend be called sounds heavy under the burden of one-sided memories.

Tommy’s presence is in many ways the answer to her question but he is still deliberate in his choice of words as he sets the china back down. He works hard not to grip the table when his hands settle, memories of short years stained brown and red by warfare. His breathing is deep whilst hers is sharp, the kitchen sideboard keeping her body straight even though she appears sunken.

“I was with him from basic training down at Chatham to the ferry over. We lost each other for a few months than we came back together and fought until the end.”

It’s a sick, twisted feeling looking at someone who has spent more time with your beloved than you’ve been able to in recent times; a relief that he wasn’t alone in those darkest of moments and a jealousy that it wasn’t you he turned to for comfort. Above all else though there is a poison that seeps into your head and your heart asking the question of why it wasn’t them left behind.

“You were with him when he was killed?” the words almost sound vulgar coming from one stranger to another and the silence that falls is full of a tension where it is unclear if Tommy will answer her question or change the topic to be polite. 

The fire crackles and she counts to twelve in her head before he picks up the teaspoon beside his cup and turns it over his hands. “Mr Shelby, if you came all the way here just to leave me with as many questions-”

“We knew they were coming,” his lips don’t falter from their natural curve even as his hands fall steady, balancing the spoon in mid-air as he tries not to slip into the memory but to rise above it. “They taught us a little trick early on in training, you see. What you’d do is take your tin - no deeper than this cup here – you’d take it and you’d pour in some water just enough to cover the base and you’d take that and put it next to the wall you’re channeling. Every twenty or so inches you’d stop, all stay completely still and you’d watch the surface of this water, right? You needed it to be steady that meant there was no noise, nothing but clay in front of you – no Germans waiting in their holes to blow you up. But you see the guns were so loud that day that we couldn’t tell what noise was in front and what was overheard. Rayleigh was the first one to notice that the waves were getting bigger, circles like craters spreading across the water,” Tommy demonstrated by tapping the bottom of the spoon against his tea. “And they kept growing. We couldn’t risk moving, James still had his boot buried in the clay if he pulled back we’d have been dead in seconds. So we sat there in our tunnel and we listened. We listened to them lay the charge.”

Tommy’s voice faces and his face begins to contort whilst sick fills his throat. “The five of us right in this crawl space no wider than this kitchen table and the light on our candle begins to shake as they block off our air supply and then all we could hear for a minute was the guns above us and then a match gets struck and you have a minute before the dynamite goes up when all rules are broken and you can make as much noise as you want because you’re going to die anyway,” tears slip from her lashes and Tommy’s face turns to stone. “And Freddie is yelling at me and so is Danny, telling me I need to let go so they can get me away from the blast but my hand is on Rayleigh’s shoulder and his arm is around James’ waist and they’re my men – I’m not going to leave them…”

His voice fades there as he looks up at her for the first time since he started talking, “But they died and I didn’t and I’m never going to forgive myself for it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think / feel, your feedback shapes how this story goes and makes me cry too. I'm thinking about starting a cute Michael fic just to lighten up the mood a little if anyone is interested in that? Beth xx

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback makes my heart grow and my fingers type faster xx


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